Keywords:
MR, Conventional radiography, Musculoskeletal soft tissue, Musculoskeletal joint, Musculoskeletal bone, Normal variants, Pathology
Authors:
A. Arya1, P. A. Tyler2; 1Watford/UK, 2London/UK
DOI:
10.1594/essr2016/P-0090
Background
The patella is an uncommon location for tumours.
It is involved in 1 to 4 out of 1000 cases of bone tumours.
Intra-osseous lesions of the patella present with non-specific symptoms such as pain,
swelling,
reduced range of movement,
mass or pathological fracture.
A tumourous condition should be suspected in cases with resistant night pain.
Pre-operative diagnosis is often difficult because radiographs only allow evaluation of aggressiveness and not the histological diagnosis.
Imaging with the use of CT and MRI plays an important part in the diagnostic work-up.
Majority of patellar tumours are benign,
the vast majority are giant cell tumours and chondroblastomas but some uncommon tumours and tumour like conditions can cause diagnostic dilemmas.